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Lowest common denominator?
Raakam
Too many years...CanadalandRegistered User regular
Too many years...CanadalandRegistered User regular
A few nights ago, couple friends and I were having a discussion about the internet as a whole and its potential. Clearly, the internet is essentially the biggest cesspool imaginable. While it is an incredible learning tool for those that want to use it that way, it's mostly a porn haven. This isn't news to anyone; but the weird thing, is that you can really find some disturbing and really horrifying stuff on it very easily. You don't even have to go looking for this sort of shit, it just gets spammed to your inbox anyway.
I'm sure even back in the olden egyptian days, you could find some random piece of papyrus that depicted a stick figure humping an anubis hieroglyph. We did the same with the printing press, photography, tv and movies and went for porn and violence. The web just took it to another level because it allowed direct input from everyone. Is this a proper reflection of our society, or is this what mankind is when you reduce it to the lowest common denominator? Sex and violence?
I'm sure even back in the olden egyptian days, you could find some random piece of papyrus that depicted a stick figure humping an anubis hieroglyph. We did the same with the printing press, photography, tv and movies and went for porn and violence. The web just took it to another level because it allowed direct input from everyone. Is this a proper reflection of our society, or is this what mankind is when you reduce it to the lowest common denominator? Sex and violence?
My padherder
they don't it be like it is but it do
they don't it be like it is but it do
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these are our two most primal instincts. survival and procreation. we've simply gotten to a point were they are seen as being more recreational, than necessity(violence more so than sex obviously). it doesn't say anything bad about us, just that we have yet to fully evolve beyond our instinctive nature. though i guess that in itself could be taken as less than flattering.
they don't it be like it is but it do
i think that's a good thing even if i dont always prefer specific forms of expression.
sex and violence may seem to take up a lot of space on the internet, but i bet the percentage of porn on the web when compared to the entire web is not much different from the percentage of porn in a video store. same with violence.
humans find sex and violence interesting. not necessarily a bad thing, imo.
I think it's what mankind is. Discover latex? Make a condom. Create television and movies? Show pornography. Invent the internet? Porn and lolcats.
so, I say take the fact that sex and violence are our "lowest common denominator" and be proud that we haven't lost that bit. It's the LCD because goddamn, EVERY human can relate to it, and hence we live on.
I'm not sure how else to describe the fact that we use speech, have built civilizations, have a higher grasp of philosophy, physics, math etc - just figured I'd encapsulate it all in "more evolved".
they don't it be like it is but it do
"poorly encapsulate"
You could argue that we have progressed further, but then you would have to argue that all of that is progress.
Personally, i'd rather swim around in the ocean all day and fuck.
the way i see it, we've "evolved" sex and violence into art.
the sex and violence that we can access now with the touch of a button is so highly refined that i doubt any "less evolved" culture could even imagine it, much less produce it on a mass scale. compare the sex and violence of our contemporary culture to that of archaic societies.
try and tell me that's not culture.
and torn almost as many back down again. we've waged wars over the most arbitrary reasons(when compared to a genuine need to fight for survival). with every benefit of evolution comes a down side. we've developed egos, prejudices, learned to hate and discriminate.
in the sense of what we are capable of, then yes, i think we can say we are more evolved, but in terms of the LCD i don't think we'll ever be any better than any other animal.
We are more manipulative and aware of our surroundings.
That's not culture.
Damn straight.
What are you trying to say, Cat?
Just wondering if I'm missing out
Srsly, all I can do is resurrect my 'we're basically chimps with delusions of grandeur, and have you seen chimps in action?' line. Also, point out that pretty much every creative pursuit ever started out as porn, right back to cave paintings.
Gotta love that cave man stick figure with the Choco-schlong.
"pretty much every" is what percent?
All of them. Cave painting, sculpture, painting-painting, poetry, the novel, dance, music, film, and the internets. The only exceptions so far have been the mass-broadcasts, where the government muscled in early, and telegrams, because its hard to write porn when every sentence ends in STOP and the sentence structure is so abbreviated. Hilarious, though.
Do you consider the creation of cars and toasters a creative pursuit?
Also, take your pedantry and shove it right up your ass. You're not going to stupid up another thread with your bullshit.
parrotsex.com is real.
I know people who work in Industrial Design. If you think toasters and especially cars don't involve some modicum of creativity, you will find yourself sorely mistaken.
Anyway, technology and media are power. From the first cave drawing to the first Web site, the medium in question is unequivocably a human being experiencing greater power than he once knew he had. The power to create another being in effigy. The power to communicate thought across the planet anonymously. And so forth. And when men behold power, they first think "I must use this power to kill and fuck." Because that's what power ultimately means to us. More killing and more fucking.
And drawing pictures of those acts so that more of it may be done. It's a vicious cycle.
I didn't say they don't O_o I know what industrial design involves.
Still the best summation ever
Seriously though, it's a bit odd how people spend soooo much effort trying to seperate themselves from animals.
I mean, I'm all for trying to behave in a less obnoxious way than a chimpanzee, and with more class than a bonobo in heat, but we have to get over the fact that we're -working- to be different than our natures.
I'd take issue with "started out". We all first make art as children. I think that the desire for individual expression, or at least attention, goes deeper than simple procreative impulses.
Sex is a major, perhaps the single most major part of life, so it's no surprise that a lot of human expression revolves around it. But they are not inextricably linked.
Edit: As I recall, the earliest of "cave paintings" were simple handprints. Is that still true? I think that is pretty essential to human nature.
O wait, I get it.
Is it a barnyard thing?
The earliest known sexual image I've heard of is this one bird man feeling very confident about himself.
Goddamn furries.
There is also this (NSFW):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/76/Mercury_god.jpg
I'm speaking historically, not in terms of lifespan.